Customers are the focus of almost all strategiesan organization develops. Even employee engagement activities that are systemized to boost the morale and motivation of workersare designed keeping customer experience in mind; if yourteams and individuals perform better, they will ultimately add value for your customers.
Why? Because, 86% of the buyers say that they will pay more for better customer experience.
The more contented customers feel with your brand, the better.They not only would like to engage more with your brand, but also spread the word of mouth among their peers.
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Customer Engagement
Small, medium, and large organizations strive real hard to gain and retain their customers. If you are a start-up, you will need to put your efforts on attractingyour target audience,engaging with them, and delightingthem as your customer. However, the biggest challenge here is to keeping them engagedin long term.
The plan of action you develop to engage with your customers and audience is called customer engagement strategy.When someone visits your website or social network, he/she starts engaging with your brand.
However, that is not the only way customers engage. As a business, you can engage with them via emails, phone calls, newsletters, chat feature (on your website or social network), and ads (on print, electronic, and digital).
The reason why engagement is important for your business is: customers who engage can have a 23% higher share in your profits.
How to Increase Customer Engagement
Brand want to keep their customers engaged throughout their buying journey, and beyond. You should not leave them after they have finalized the purchase; keep them engaged and they will be happy to return, buy gain, and recommend your brand.
Companies with strong customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers.
Here are some of the tried and tested strategies to increase customer engagement –
Listen
Listen what your customers say – in front of you and behind your back.It could be a great way to personalize the experience you offer.
Develop a habit of listing more- You can ask your customers to explain their experience with your brand. What was it that they liked most? What was it that they didn’t like about your product or service? How was their experience talking with your reps; was it good or bad?
Answers to questions like these give you an opportunity to improve, and show that you care for your customer. And there is no better feeling than that for a customer.
Behind your back: integrate social listening toolsin your process. These tools can capture the mentions of your brand name and products on digital.
Whenever a happy, unhappy, or future customer mentions about you on web, forums, or social network, the tool will send you an alert or notification. You can engage with your customers and prospects.
Offer Rewards and Loyalty Programs –
Offering discounts, rewards, and loyalty benefits to customers can multiply the engagement rate. If done on social network, then these campaigns can skyrocket your impression, engagement, clicks, and traffic too.
61% of customers believe that surprise gifts are the best way to engage. Moreover, 30% of users will start using a product again if they are offered with a discount.
25% of customers who are offered loyalty benefits say that they are more loyalthis year than they were last year.
There are several ways you can delight your existing customers. These may include sending them a surprised gift on their special days like birthday or anniversary, on the anniversary of becoming your customer, and on festivals. You can also ask them to refer a friend and in exchange offer them cashback or discount on their next purchase.
iCustomLabel, an online store that offers custom printed stickers and labels to individuals and businesses, recently ran a campaign on Facebook for their existing customers. They offered a discount for their existing customers, and those who referred their friends. They saw good increase in engagement in the first week of the campaign.
Make Your Employees Feel Better –
Create a happy and peaceful workenvironment.Make sure there is no place for pressure and stress at your workplace.
This will help your teams focus on the quality of work, which will ultimately add to the customer experience.
Monitor and train your customer-facing teamsoccasionally, so they can handle customer calls, queries, and problems more resourcefully.Just for a reminder: your customer-facing teams are marketing, sales, customer support, and any department that meet or speak to customers on a daily basis.
You will also need to organize training sessions for other teams that are responsible for ensuring product quality.
While these tips will help you create consistent customer engagement in the long run, following are a few tricks to gain solid engagement quickly –
“Tag Your Friend” Content –
You must have seen posts from pages that ask their followers to tag their friends in comment section. Why do they do that? Have you ever given a thought?
It gives your post, offer, page, or brand asolid engagement in no time.It need not be a paid campaign. But, you can run ads to widen the reach of such postsand to create engagement. And the results will be quite encouraging.
However, ascertain that you are not spamming or violating the regulations of the platform.
Be Present on Different Platforms –
If you are an ecommerce business, you should be present on different marketplaces to capture attention and engagement from multiple dimensions. Apart from that, you should also have an active presence on all relevant social networks.
Practices like these will increase engagement, though you will need to have an effective content plan for each social network.
Take Reviews and Ratings Seriously –
Many brands ignore customer reviews– whether positive or negative. In an age of social media and digital dominance, you cannot actually afford to ignore the words of your customers.
In fact, negative reviews get more visibility on social media and search results, because these platforms want to protect their other users from things that could be harmful for their interest. So, they show negative ratings on top, above positive feedbacks.
While you can appreciate customers who post positive reviews, you should not also avoid negative review. You can take criticism as a chance to offer value and improvise your fault. You can please and appease your unsatisfied or dissatisfied customers on the same thread, and build trust and with that, engagement.
Just never avoidfeedbacks!